Tournaments

Austrian Pinball Masters – Overview

As part of the Austrian Pinball Festival, several IFPA-registered pinball tournaments will take place.
Together, these tournaments make up the Austrian Pinball Masters, with a main tournament as well as Warm Up, Classic, Women and High Score.

In addition, we also run a few tournaments that are NOT registered with the IFPA and are held for kids and teams.

Here is the list of tournaments

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Warm Up (IFPA)

General:

IFPA link: www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=110852

Date: May 13, 2026
Registration: from 1:00 PM
Start time: 3:00 PM

Qualification:
  • 7 rounds of group matchplay
  • The top 10% (16/24/32) advance to the finals.
  • To decide who advances and any byes, a tiebreaker game will be played for the full game duration.
Finals:
  • Single elimination, best of 4
  • If 24 players make the finals, the top 8 each receive 1 bye

APF – Austrian Pinball Master

General:

IFPA link: https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=110853

Date: May 14–17, 2026
Registration: from 9:00 AM
Start time: Thursday from 10:00 AM, otherwise from 9:30 AM

  • The tournament is designed for 384 players.
  • The Austrian Pinball Masters main tournament is the ECS tournament in Austria and qualifies for awarding a TGP booster.
  • Qualification takes place on Thursday and Friday, with finals on Saturday and Sunday.
    When registering, please let us know your preferred qualification day. We will do our best to accommodate your request.
  • 96 players from all groups qualify for the final rounds.
Qualification:
  • Participants are divided into four 6-hour time slots (A/B/C/D).
  • Time slots A/B take place on Thursday, and time slots C/D on Friday.
  • Qualification for the Austrian Pinball Masters Classic takes place on the same day, but in the other time slot (e.g., Main in the morning, Classic in the afternoon/evening).
  • Each time slot consists of 5 groups with 16 participants each (6 to 384).
  • Each group is assigned its own bank of pinball machines and plays a round-robin format (15 games total).
  • The top 4 in each group qualify for the finals.
    The group winner receives a bye.
    The runner-up in each group plays a high-score game on an assigned machine to earn one of the remaining 12 byes.
    The fifth-place finishers in each group play a high-score game on a designated machine to earn one of the remaining 16 final spots.
  • In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker decides advancement to the finals and the byes within the group (for places 1 and 2), immediately after all group games. The tournament director selects the machines for the tiebreaker from that group’s machine pool.
  • If places 3 and 4 in a group have the same score, the result of the head-to-head tiebreaker determines the ranking (does not apply to byes or advancement to the finals).
  • A separate tiebreaker machine is available for the fifth-place finisher in each group to determine the potential finalists.
Finals:
  • Knockout format (best of 7)
  • For seeding in the finals, the following criteria are considered between groups in the order listed:
    1. Placement within the qualification group
    2. Qualification score
    3. IFPA ranking
  • Machine selection in final rounds 1–3 is based on the available games on the “game board”.
  • Players must return the selected machine tag immediately after the game and choose a new game from the available games. This helps avoid waiting times on Saturday.
  • On Sunday, waiting is allowed. The game board shows which games are in the finals.
  • Each machine may be selected once per round and player matchup.

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Classic (IFPA)

General:

IFPA link: https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=110855

Date: May 14–16, 2026
Registration: from 9:00 AM
Start time: Thursday from 10:00 AM, otherwise from 9:30 AM

  • The tournament format is designed for 384 players.
  • Qualification takes place on Thursday and Friday, with finals on Saturday. Your qualification day is the same as your main qualification day.
Qualification:
  • Participants are divided into four 6-hour time slots (A/B/C/D).
  • Time slots A/B take place on Thursday and time slots C/D on Friday.
  • Main qualification for the Austrian Pinball Masters takes place on the same day, but in the other time slot (e.g., main qualification in the morning, followed by Classic qualification in the afternoon/evening).
  • In each time slot, group matchplay is played over 8 rounds. The top 12 players qualify for the next round.
  • The top four qualifiers in the group receive a bye.
  • In the event of a tie, a tiebreaker on a machine designated by the tournament director decides advancement to the finals and the byes within the group.
Finals:
  • Top 48 players, knockout format, best of 5
  • For seeding in the finals, the following criteria are considered between groups in the order listed:
    1. Placement in the group
    2. Group score
    3. Matchplay tiebreaker
    4. IFPA ranking
  • Machine selection in the finals is based on the available games on the “game board”.
  • Players must return the selected machine tag immediately after the game and choose a new game from the available games. This helps avoid waiting times on Saturday.
  • Each machine may be selected once per round and player matchup.

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – High Score (IFPA)

General:

IFPA link: https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=110857

Date: May 14–17, 2026
Registration: from 9:00 AM
Start time: Thursday from 10:00 AM, otherwise from 9:30 AM

  • The tournament is designed for a maximum of 320 players.
  • If demand is significantly higher, the tournament director will decide on site whether to keep the limit at 320 or apply the final format based on the IFPA requirement of 10% finalists.
  • Changes will be announced by Saturday at 12:00 PM at the latest.
Qualification:
  • Over 30 hours of unlimited qualifying for your best game (see schedule)
  • The machine bank includes 16 machines from all generations and manufacturers.
  • 12 entries are included with registration; additional entries can be purchased in blocks of 5.
  • A player’s best 12 entries count, with a maximum of 2 per machine.
Finals:
  • 32 players make the finals
  • With 240 or fewer participants, only 24 players qualify,
    and the top 8 receive a bye
  • Knockout format (best of 5)
  • Before each game, the group leader selects a machine from the
    “game board”.
  • Players must return the tag for the selected machine immediately after the game,
    and the group leader then selects a new game from the available machines.
  • Each machine may be selected once per round and player matchup.

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Women (IFPA)

General:

IFPA link: https://www.ifpapinball.com/tournaments/view.php?t=110858

Date: May 15, 2026
Registration: until 9:00 PM
Start time: 9:30 PM

  • The qualification and finals formats will be set based on registration numbers and adjusted to reach 100% of the total number of participants.
  • Registration is only for the women’s tournament – participation in the Main/Classics tournament is not required.
  • Players registered for the Main/Classics tournament will be assigned to qualification slots A/B/C to allow for an early start.
  • Before the tournament starts, there will be a short pub quiz & meet & greet to warm up & connect
Qualification:
  • e.g., round robin (1 or 2 groups), max matchplay, fair strikes – to be decided
  • The tournament director will adjust the format depending on the number of participants to achieve 100% TGP within the available time.
Finals:
  • e.g., group elimination on 3 machines, Amazing Race – to be decided

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Team (Fun)

General:

Date: May 17, 2026
Registration: until 9:30 AM
Start time: 10:00 AM

Based on the Country Knockout tournament at EPC2025, we’re running a team tournament at APF.

  • Teams can register in groups of 4.
  • Each player may only participate in one team
  • Registration is handled on a first-come, first-served basis
  • The tournament format is single elimination, best of 7, split into 3 sub-rounds
    Round 1: Shared game on one pinball machine with 4 balls and 1 ball per team player
    Round 2: 2 parallel 2-player split games (split left and right)
    Round 3: 4 parallel single-player games
  • Ideally, 16 or 32 teams will take part in the tournament.
    If we need to award byes, we’ll come up with a mode so they aren’t distributed randomly.

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Company Tournament (Fun)

General:

Date: May 17, 2026
Registration: until 9:30 AM
Start time: 10:00 AM

At the Austrian Pinball Festival, the goal is to reach everyone, and to further spread pinball sport in the greater Upper Austria area, we’re running the company/group tournament.

  • Teams can register in groups of 4.
  • Each player may only participate in one team
  • Registration is handled on a first-come, first-served basis
  • The tournament format is single elimination, best of 7, split into 3 sub-rounds
    Round 1: Shared game on one pinball machine with 4 balls and 1 ball per team player
    Round 2: 2 parallel 2-player split games (split left and right)
    Round 3: 4 parallel single-player games
  • Ideally, 16 or 32 teams will take part in the tournament.
    If we need to award byes, we’ll come up with a mode so they aren’t distributed randomly.

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Kids Tournament (Fun)

General:

Details will be published soon

APF – Austrian Pinball Master – Lego Tournament (Fun)

General:

Date: expected on May 15 and 16, 2026
Registration: tbd
Start time: tbd

  • We have a fully functional 1 m pinball machine here for you, built from Lego bricks. It’s a further development of the pinball machine that was already here at EPC 2025.
  • Give it a try and take part in the high-score tournament.
  • There will be Lego prizes to win.